graphics on layouts... Trying again...

[macguys]

I'm attempting this post for the second time...if this is a repeat, please forgive me. I'm new to the forum.

I am building a tracking system for a clinical genetic research project at a university. I need to add the university's logo to some of the forms. I've got a copy of the logo as an Illustrator eps. I've tried placing it on layouts as an eps, and have converted it into jpgs, tiffs, gifs, psds, etc. Nothing works. Jpegs look the best but fuzzy. EPS, gifs and tiffs look pixilated.

I'm sure that there is a solution to this problem. I'm pretty sure that it's my problem. I'm probablly missing something. Any hints are welcome.

Dave

[Ocean West]

Are you talking about how the logo looks on screen or when printed?

Of course for higher quality for printing use the EPS or a high res tiff. But if you are talking about on screen just to see it I would recommend a jpg or pict.

Are you printing from windows or mac?

[macguys]

I'm concerned about how the graphic looks when printed. The environment is FMP 5.5 on OS X 10.2. I have a copy of the logo created with Illustrator and saved as an EPS. It prints fine from Illustrator, Appleworks, and just about any other application I try it with except FMP.

[CamMac2]

What kind of printer are you using? (postscript vs. non-postscript)

Non-postscript will print eps files jaggy, because they are just printing the on-screen representation of the eps file.

JPEGs and gifs are better for on-screen. The best *should* be eps for postcript printers and tiff for non-postscript printers.

**Make sure that you open the Illustrator file in Photoshop and then save as a different format (tiff, etc.). I've noticed that often gives you a cleaner, more "true" format, than the one you get directly from illustrator.

If it is a color or grayscale logo, open the file at 300 dpi. If it is B&W (no grays) you should be fine to open it at 600 - 800 dpi.

Also, since you are on a mac, you can just copy from Photoshop, and paste into Filemaker.

I had the same problem, and I just created a temporary layout in Filemaker, and "copied and pasted" AND "inserted picture" -different formats from Photoshop (pict, tif, bmp, jpeg). In my case, the pict file, copied and pasted, printed the best.

[macguys]

I'm using an Apple Laserwriter 8500, which uses Postscript 3.

[BobWeaver]

Filemaker should be able to print an eps graphic to a postscript printer at the best resolution. I say "should" because I know that there have been a lot of printing problems on OSX and this may be another one of them.